


when i choke would you try and help me breathe?

by lilsoftgay



Series: writers month 2020 <3 [7]
Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, F/F, SO, beck has no clue what to do with them, cat is also a mess, i didn't mean to write it this way but it happened, idk if people will like it, jade is a mess, they help each other out though, this is an unusual version of an ED story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsoftgay/pseuds/lilsoftgay
Summary: "I wasn’t ready. You can’t force someone into accepting help before they’re ready. You can lead them to the help, or throw the help into their face, but they won’t take it."---writer's month - day 7 : hurt/comfort
Relationships: Beck Oliver/Cat Valentine/Jade West, Cat Valentine & Jade West, Cat Valentine/Jade West
Series: writers month 2020 <3 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861795
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	when i choke would you try and help me breathe?

**Author's Note:**

> tw : eating disorders / weight / anorexia - the entire story centers around an ED. 
> 
> tw : blood - short & brief mention of blood midway through the story
> 
> \---
> 
> disclaimer : this is a fictional story, depicting something specific in a specific way that i wanted to write. it doesn't show some of the (very real, very valid) facets of EDs that are common in most ED stories. not all EDs are the same, not everyone handles them the same way, etc. i'm not going to explain my reasoning behind why i wrote this or why i wrote it this way in this author's note, but please know there are personal reasons for it. 
> 
> —
> 
> title is from version of me by sasha sloan

It starts out small. 

(It always does.)

Mason Thornesmith offers them bibble, and all of them try it. 

Jade mentions something about being on a diet but no one listens to her. 

Cat is the only one that gets addicted. 

\---

It starts out small. 

(So small.)

“WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO ME-”   
  
“Hey Cat, lunch!” 

“Oh yay food!” 

She spins on her heels and skips after Jade, clapping as she goes. She’s forgotten whatever it was that she was talking to - yelling at - Beck about. Something about his English major, maybe, but probably not. She doesn’t bother to remember, Beck will tell her if it was important, or Jade will. Jade always lets her know when something’s important or when she’s forgotten something, or when she’s being a wazz. 

Jade rolls her eyes as Cat runs up to the food trucks in the open air food court, and rolls them again when Cat sits down next to her with two plates - a meal and a plate of just candy - only a couple of minutes later. She’s not even sure when the last time Cat didn’t eat a pile of junk is. 

\---

It starts out small. 

(So small, no one even notices.)

“Cat.” 

Jade’s waving a lollipop at her, an attempt to stop her incessant screeching, demanding to know what Rex’s insult meant. 

Cat stares at the lollipop for a minute. When Jade waves it more violently, she holds a palm out for Jade to drop it into. A sad consolation prize for no one wanting to explain the insult to her. 

Jade stares at her just a moment too long, until she’s unwrapped the lollipop and placed it in her mouth. 

Just as soon, she takes it out of her mouth, gagging in disgust. “Jaaade! You know I hate black licorice, why did you give me one of yours?” 

Jade shrugs, holding back a laugh when Cat launches it across the food court, letting it land in SinJin’s hair. 

\---

“Anyone know where Little Red is?” 

A chorus of no’s answer Andre’s pointless question. It’s Thursday and no-one’s seen Cat in the dining hall yet this week. It’s been four, maybe five, weeks since they have. 

“Well the girl needs to come eat lunch, she’s like ninety pounds max. Beck you have that weird acting class with her before lunch tomorrow, make sure she gets here yeah?” 

Jade stares at the untouched salad on her tray, huffs, then pushes it across the table so it crashes into Beck’s as she stands up and leaves without a word. 

\---

Robbie grits his teeth as he sees Cat and Jade at the other end of the dorm’s hallway. Jade’s bending forwards, trying to meet Cat at eye level, but really it looks like Jade’s lecturing her child from here. 

_ Cat’s really tiny, _ he thinks.

He expects yelling, big gestures, Jade storming off. He doesn’t actually hear anything they’re saying until he’s right next to them. 

“Cat...” Jade’s voice is the softest he’s ever heard it. Please.”“

Robbie’s eyes bug out. A spontaneous plea from Jade, and a polite one at that.

They see him a second later, and Cat’s pasting a smile on her face and turning to him and jumping up and down, squealing about her latest SkyMall purchase, whatever a FitGrit is. 

Jade stares after them, frowning instead of rolling her eyes. She waits until they’re gone to retreat back into her & Cat’s dorm room, wiping away a few stray tears. 

\--- 

Cat sits with them at lunch the next day, but she’s forgotten her wallet, so she’s stuck with just water she shares in her usual high pitched voice. 

Jade immediately pushes her salad towards Cat, “I’m not hungry anyway.” 

\---

Beck’s the second one to say anything, to notice anything. He always is, the silent observer of the group. 

“Did your car break?” 

“No?”

“You just  _ chose _ to run all the way here? You know we have busses straight from campus into downtown, right?” 

Cat shrugs, bounces up and down a few times, telling him about her new shoes from SkyMall. 

Beck sighs, and asks her if that was the only color they came in or if he could get a black pair too. 

(Jade was first.)

\---

“Cat?” She pats the girl’s arm gently, not wanting to scare her into waking up, but God, she needs to wake up and she needs to wake up now. “Cat we need to go back to the dorm. It’s like, 1am.” 

Cat nods, and Jade isn’t sure if she’s awake. 

She picks her up, easily, too easily. Cat’s never been heavy, but Jade’s pretty sure she doesn’t weigh anything more than her little brother now. He’s in the 4th grade, and short. They’re freshmen in college. 

\---

“But Jadeyyy.” Cat pouts, turning away from the mirror and pulling on Jade’s jumper, trying to stretch it out around her. 

(It’s already plenty baggy enough on Cat, Jade notices bitterly.) 

Jade looks at her, and it’s almost a glare, but when she sees how Cat’s struggling to keep a skirt up that used to be almost tight on her at the start of the school year and how her jumper’s almost falling off of Cat’s shoulders, she softens her gaze. 

“What Cat?” 

“You’re on a diet too, why do I have to stop mine?” 

Jade raises an eyebrow. She wasn’t aware that Cat had been paying such close attention to her. 

Cat shakes her head, misunderstanding Jade’s defensive reaction. “I heard you. When Dean Thornesmith gave us bibble. You said you were on a diet. I know that was all the way back in August last year but you still only eat salad and you always want to share it with me instead of eating it yourself and...” 

“That’s different, moron.” 

It’s short, it’s sharp, and it’s enough to make Cat cry. 

She runs out of the room before Jade can stop her, can tell her how that’s not what she meant, can tell her that she knows Cat’s hurting because Jade’s hurting too even though it  _ is _ different. 

\---

No one is able to get Cat to come to lunch for another three weeks after that. 

\---

“Is that why you do this?” 

“Do what?” 

Jade points at her half a handful of almonds, and giant water bottle, and it’s the closest they’ve ever come to saying it. 

Cat stalls, nibbling one at of the almonds to peel a layer off it while she plays with the others in her hand. 

“Is what why I do this?” 

“Me. Me dieting.” Jade clarifies as soon as she sees Cat’s face twist in confusion.

She forgets about the almonds, letting them fall to the floor, scattering about. 

(Jade makes a note to vacuum under their beds later, they don’t want to get mice friends. Well, Cat might. But she definitely doesn’t.) 

“No.” 

It’s a simple answer, and it’s not enough, but it’s enough. Cat seems to know, she walks to Jade’s bed and places both her hands on Jade’s shoulders. She sways a little as she stands on her tiptoes to do this. 

Jade puts her hands firmly on Cat’s tiny waist, keeping her still. Keeping her in this world. 

“You said you were on a diet and had one single piece of bibble and I ate, like, so much bibble. Jade they  _ banned _ me from eating bibble that’s how much I ate bibble.”    
  
“Say bibble one more time.”    
  
“Bibble.”

Jade lifts Cat onto her bed, and she’s not sure if it’s the angle she’s pulling her up from or that she’s sitting firmly on her bed right now instead of carrying her back to the dorm at 1am, but Cat’s even lighter than last time. 

“You’re beautiful, Cat. You don’t need to diet, especially not anymore.” 

“Then why are you still dieting?” 

\---

Cat joins them for lunch the next day, water in hand, no almonds in sight. She beams when Jade pushes her plate over to share her salad & pasta, but doesn’t take any of it. 

\---

“Beautiful isn’t the same as skinny, you know?” 

Jade turns their night light on and and leans over her bed to face Cat, almost falling out of the top bunk. 

Somewhere in the terrifying sequence of movements to stop herself from fully falling, she notices it’s 3am and Cat’s still laying on the bottom bunk fully clothed. 

“Okay?” 

“You said I don’t need to diet, because I’m beautiful.”    
  
“You don’t, and you are.” 

Cat looks upwards, not quite at Jade, but close enough.    
  


“Was I not beautiful when we first met too?” 

Jade grabs the side of the bunk tightly, gripping enough to make her knuckles go pale even in the barely lit room. It’s only when she lets go that she realizes it was her heart falling into her stomach and not her body falling off the bed again. 

“You’ve always been beautiful, Cat. Why would you ever think otherwise?” 

“That’s my point, though, right? Don’t you see? We’re beautiful, diets or not. It’s not about beautiful. Not for me, anyway.” 

Jade stares at her for a few moments. Or maybe it’s a lot of moments. Jade isn’t sure of that, and she’s also not sure why they all just branded Cat as an airhead. Sure, the girl asks the weirdest questions, and shares out of context stories of her brother that don’t really match anything that’s been said in the 5 minutes before she shares the story, or purchase everything she sees on SkyMall. But Cat... she’s not stupid. She may be one of the most emotionally intelligent people Jade has ever met. And she’s quiet about it. 

Cat falls asleep, turning on her side and bringing her thumb to her cheek. 

Jade’s reminded once again of how scarily small Cat really is. 

\---

Cat almost faints on her way back to the dorm from her run to the city & back. 

Beck catches her. 

The’d made it a habit of meeting up downtown, though Beck had pointedly ignored Cat’s flushed cheeks and sweat covered body after the third time he’d asked why on earth she was running herself into the ground. 

Running herself into nothing. 

They would meet up at the music store, find a new vinyl for Beck’s collection and music sheets for a new song Cat wants to try, and grab coffee before heading back. Sometimes Beck would grab a pastry and try to share it. Cat almost always refused, occasionally acepting a bite but mostly she was too full from a giant breakfast or too tired from her run or whatever popped into her head that day. 

Cat always tried to get Beck to run back to campus with her. Sometimes he’d agree to walk it with her, slowly, both going at his pace. If she noticed that his chosen snail pace seemed to slow to glacial whenever her breathing started to get too hard, she didn’t say anything. Usually though, Beck could convince her into taking the bus back to campus. 

He’d lost their discussion that day, and they were only a quarter mile to their dorm when she wobbled, more than usual. He stuck his arm out as a reflex. 

His phone was out, ready to dial 911 when Cat shook herself into consciousness. 

She makes puppy eyes, and Beck rolls his but says okay to them, and to her promise to have a big dinner with Jade and to take it easy tomorrow. As long as she let him piggyback her to her dorm room. She tilts her head at that, ready to argue, but she sways as she stands up and says okay. She’s already won most of their arguments today anyway. 

“I’m going to hurt you though, I don’t want to hurt you Beck.” 

Beck steps out of his crouched stance and turns around to look at her, incredulous. “Cat you weigh like, ninety pounds. You cannot possibly hurt me.” 

She’s offended, her face crumpling as she balls up her fists to wipe away tears. 

Beck stands awkwardly, running the words over in his head. He hugs her gently, and tries again, “I promise you won’t hurt me. If you do, I’ll let you know, but I promise you won’t. I’ve even piggybacked Andre before, come on, hop up ponygirl.” 

She laughs through her tears a little and does what she says. 

She falls asleep, head on his shoulder, before he’s even at the door of their dorm, fiddling with his pocket to try to get to his keycard buried deep inside his wallet. 

(It wasn’t the puppy eyes, it was seeing the absolute terrified fear he’d felt reflected back at him in her eyes. She was scared too.)

\---

Jade opens their dorm room door with a grunt, jumping back when she sees what’s on the other side. 

She holds her arms out readily, gently grabbing Cat when Beck turns around. He follows her in wordlessly. 

They don’t talk about it. They don’t know what to say, there isn’t all that much to say. 

It started off small, but it’s obvious now. 

She’s in too deep. 

\---

They’re not sure which one of them started crying first and who woke who up, but its 2am and they’re both crying. 

Cat crawls up into the top bunk and Jade spoons her, holding her tight, until they both fall asleep. 

They miss acting class the next morning and lunch after that, sleeping in until the early afternoon, Jade barely waking up enough to text Beck to grab notes for them. She doesn’t ask him to grab food. 

She holds Cat again when she starts crying again. Jade’s not sure at what, but Cat falls asleep before she can ask. She tries not to think about how little space Cat is taking up in front of her. 

\---

Both of them roll their eyes at their friends piling into the dorm room, and glare at the pizzas they’ve brought with them. 

Cat frets, and Jade makes them all get off the bottom bunk. 

Tori and Robbie, no tact and seven slices deep each are banished to the top bunk. Andre sprawls backwards on Cat’s desk chair. Cat makes a face at this, but Jade’s is holding the pizza boxes so she lets him sit there. 

Beck flops onto the floor, and Jade sprawls onto the two seater couch they definitely weren’t supposed to have brought into the dorm room but absolutely did anyway. 

Cat stares at a spot on the wall, all she wants to do is go back to sleep. 

Jade gently grabs her shoulders and pulls her down into her lap. She holds her tighter and shakes her head a little when Cat starts to wriggle, trying to get free. 

Someone turns on the TV and Tori makes them turn it to Grey’s Anatomy. No one complains. 

They’re two episodes in when Beck pushes a paper plate with two slices of pizza at Jade and Cat. Jade takes it, frowning, and holds it out to Cat. 

Cat stares at her. 

Everyone else stares at Cat. 

Jade stares pointedly at Beck. 

Beck coughs, and everyone’s suddenly looking at Grey’s Anatomy very intently. 

“Jo’s hot.” 

Andre launches something or other from Cat’s desk at Robbie, who yelps as he crashes into Tori. 

They watch half a season together, debating who would make the best surgeon out of all of them (Jade is the group consensus, Jade doesn’t say anything but she thinks it’s actually Cat). 

Andre looks at the two of them, Cat’s shivering and Jade just looks frustrated, and decides it’s time to head out. Tori and Robbie get shephereded out like children, before they can do or say anything, and Andre waves goodbye as he leaves Beck to clean up. 

He tries not to sigh audibly at how much pizza they’ve left on their plate. Cat’s is untouched entirely, Jade’s eaten the vegetables. plucked off the cheese and left it on the side of the plate, and taken a few bites of the dough, mostly from the crust. 

(They hear him anyway.)

\---

“Want some?” 

Cat looks up, surprised at Jade’s chicken salad box that she’s pulling out of the fridge. 

Jade shrugs. “I do want to eat, you know? Just not pizza, not yet. And not in front of them.” 

Cat nods, but doesn’t say anything or move towards her. 

She does take the ziplock of frozen grapes that Jade offers her, though, and sits on the couch staring at them. 

“You don’t have to have all of them. But please try. Even if it’s just a few and really slowly. I don’t want you passing out again.” 

Cat nods again. 

\---

Cat climbs up into the top bunk again that night, tears running down her cheeks as Jade holds her until she’s safely in dreamland. 

Jade smiles a little when she sees the ziplock is empty the next morning. 

\---

Jade frowns a lot more when she takes out their trash that night and sees all the grapes. 

\---

Pizza night for Shondaland Thursdays becomes a weekly thing. None of them have classes Friday, though a few have part time jobs. 

No one forces them to eat pizza. They just order plenty, too much, just in case. But Beck, sometimes Andre, occasionally Robbie, will take home the leftovers. 

Jade always pulls her salad out after and offers pieces to Cat, but Jade’s starting to eat more of her own slice of pizza now. 

\---

Cat stops running down town, Beck brings her back some music sheets each time anyway.

Cat does crawl into Jade’s bed every night, though. 

Sometimes, rarely, if Beck’s stayed long after everyone else has left after Shondaland night, he joins them, and together they sandwich Cat into the tightest of hugs. Neither one notices that they’re taking turns making sure she’s still breathing through the night. 

(Cat notices.)

\---

Jade eats two slices of pizza on Thursday. 

Cat doesn’t crawl into her bed that night. 

Jade’s a little hurt, wonders if she shouldn’t have had the second slice, but she was hungry and Hawaiian is her favorite. (She’s pretty sure Beck always orders extra of that on purpose, even though no one else really likes it.)

\---

Cat stops crawling into Jade’s bed every night. 

Cat stops going to anything at all except mandatory classes, too. And even then, only barely. 

\---

It’s not until next Thursday that Jade plucks up the courage to ask. 

She’s had three pizza slices, and Cat’s looking at her funny from the bottom bunk while she gets ready for bed. 

“Do you think I’m fat?” 

Cat leaps up, banging her head on the bottom of the top bunk, squealing. There’s blood, but Cat just wipes at it roughly, more focused on taking a few shaky steps towards Jade and putting her tiny, cold, clammy hands on Jade’s shoulders. “Jade. Jadelyn West. You are the absolute furthest thing from fat. You’re very healthy, thin. And also beautiful.” 

It would be a more romantic kiss if Jade didn’t end up with some of Cat’s blood on her forehead. 

“Then why did you stop sleeping in my bed after I ate all the pizza?” 

Cat looks at her with big doe eyes, and it’s different to the puppy eyes she makes when she wants something or wants someone to leave her alone and not ask the obvious question that’s on the tip of their tongue. Jade’s only seen this look a couple times before. 

Cat mumbles her answer, and if Jade were anyone else she’d need to repeat it. 

Jade’s heart breaks instead. 

She doesn’t reply, not really, because if she does it’s too much and too big and she’s scared, too. 

\---

Jade crawls into Cat’s bunk, nudging her over gently, and holding her like she had before. 

“Why?” 

Cat’s staring at the the wall, away from Jade. Both their defenses are down. 

“Because. Because I’m eating enough to have enough energy to crawl into your bed.” It’s said without any malice, without any judgement, without any negative intention. But the meaning’s still clear. 

Cat’s tears are silent, but Jade knows she’s crying. Jade’s crying too. 

“Because I don’t want you to disappear, because I don’t know what else to do, because I love you.”

Jade whispers it over Cat’s shoulder, directly into Cat’s ear. 

Cat leans forward, kissing Jade’s hands that are clasped around her chest.  _ I love you, too _ . 

\---

Beck loves them too, and he crawls into Cat’s bunk the next night he stays over too. He raises an eyebrow at Jade, who nods, but neither of them say anything. 

Beck stays over most nights after that. 

\---

Cat takes a bite of pizza. Well, a bite of a topping, from one of Jade’s slices. 

Everyone holds their breath, and everyone stares very pointedly at the TV instead of at Cat. 

\---

Beck brings her back a music sheet, it’s a pop song and Cat wants to roll her eyes at the title, a cheesy love-yourself anthem by yet another straight man, but she’s tired, so tired, and she leans forwards into him instead. A hug, almost. 

Beck hugs her and picks her up to carry her up to her dorm room. She’s asleep by the time they get there, and he lays her gently onto the top bunk, climbing in after jer. 

Jade joins them after her classes. 

\---

Cat eats two slices of pizza, and promptly runs to the bathroom. 

Jade follows slowly after a few minutes. 

“That wasn’t... I didn’t...” Cat sighs, she’s tired, so very tired, and even when she  _ does _ try she still somehow fails. 

Jade hands her the mouthwash she’d picked up on her way out of their dorm room and pulls her hair into a loose ponytail while Cat flushes her mouth out. 

“I didn’t think you’d made yourself throw up. You’re not used to food all that much anymore, especially not food like pizza, even though it’s yummy. Your body just didn’t know what to do with it. Same thing happened to me.” Jade shrugs. “You’ll get used to it over time. I promise. It’ll adjust, just give it time.” 

Cat’s eyes are as big as saucers when she turns to face Jade, handing her back her mouthwash and grabbing her hand. 

Jade nods, bringing Cat in for a hug, then letting the shorter girl lean on her as they make their way back down the hallway. “Same way it adjusted when you stopped eating, it’ll adjust back to eating.” 

“Oh.” 

Cat thinks back to how slowly Jade had had to work her way up to eating pizza normally again. 

“Do you still have your after pizza salad box?” 

\---

They don’t talk about it, but they also do. Mostly they talk around it. It’s a mutual agreement, unspoken, between the two of them for a long time now. Beck was later brought into it. 

They talk about it in therapy. Beck convinced them into going when Cat started to eat pizza again. 

It didn’t take all that much convincing. 

So they do talk about it, but they also don’t. 

It’s nice. It doesn’t feel like a lot of pressure, just a lot of love. 

Beck wonders if he should have done more, should have made them talk to someone sooner, brought Cat to a hospital. 

Cat stares at him, like she knows what he’s thinking. 

“I would’ve just fought it.” 

Jade raises an eyebrow, and Cat sighs. 

“I would have just fought it  _ harder _ .” Cat clarifies, popping a strawberry into her mouth. She furrows her brow, recalling the way her therapist had helped her verbalize her feelings a few weeks ago. “I wasn’t ready. You can’t force someone into accepting help before they’re ready. You can lead them to the help, or throw the help into their face, but they won’t take it. It’s like...” Cat pops another strawberry into her mouth, and sighs when she can’t recall the metaphor her therapist had given her. 

Beck nudges her softly, curious. Jade stays quiet. 

“I guess it’s like if you see someone shivering and cold you can give them your jacket and if they don’t take it you might put it onto their shoulders for them by force.” 

(Beck laughs, as though this wasn’t a very real scenario. He has more of his jackets in Cat and Jade’s closet than his own. He doesn’t mind.) 

“And it might make them a bit warmer because you’ve put the jacket  _ on _ them. But if they push the sleeves up or leave the zip open,” Cat pauses to look at Jade, “Or if they just downright throw the jacket off their shoulders into a puddle and run away screaming with glee.” Cat points at herself. “Then ... they’re not warmer. You gave them a jacket and it did jack shit. They need to want the jacket.” 

Cat leans back on her hands, a little bit tired and a lot out of words. 

Jade smiles and not for the first time cherishes that she’s one of a handful of people that Cat will get real with, will level with, will actually share her intelligence with. 

Cat jumps up and climbs into the top bunk, snuggling in under Jade’s duvet for a nap before their musical theater class. 

Jade and Beck stare at each other, amusement etched over their faces, then clear up the leftover food quickly and join her. 

\---

It’s not all upwards and easy and enlightening soliloquies about accepting help, recovery never is.

Jade stumbles first, when the costume for their spring play is tighter than she wants, because the fitting was around Christmas, just before she’d started to eat pizza again. 

She sheds some tears and almost whines about hating how fat she is when she walks back into their dorm room. 

It’s technically just Jade and Cat’s room, but Beck’s moved in too, the RA turned a bilnd eye. It left Beck’s old bed free for Robbie to move into, Andre’s a nicer roommate than Robbie’s previous roommate anyway. 

Beck tells her that no, she’s beautiful. Cat whacks his head with the mug of mac and cheese she’d been making for him, sending bright orange powder flying everywhere. 

Beck just sighs and goes downstairs to rent a vacuum from the dorm’s front desk. 

He joins them in their bed once he’s cleaned up Cat’s mess (his fault, his mess, she trills from the top bunk, making Jade laugh), and Cat very sharply tells him that they’re all beautiful and beautiful and fat aren’t mutually exclusive. 

“And also, Jade’s not fat.” 

\---

Cat stumbles a few times, and falls pretty badly once. 

She’s in hospital for three days on an IV, and then gets released or signs herself out. Jade and Beck aren’t sure, but they don’t ask again after she glares and mutters the word jacket. 

  
She willingly ups her therapy sessions to twice a week, so they just keep a closer eye on her. 

Cat eats her pizza slices on Thursday, and it’s slower and more painstaking than the past few months, but she smiles and gives a thumbs up to Beck and Jade. 

“Gotta take it slow.” 

Robbie and Tori stare at them from the top bunk and Andre just shrugs. Jade nods, and Beck pushes the empty plate over onto Jade’s desk to clean up later. 

\---

Tori asks about it once, and Beck decides there and then is a great time to get excited about the summer festival their college is throwing, instead of talking about Cat and Jade and their eating habits. 

They know some, enough, but not too much. They don’t really talk about it

Cat and Jade like it better that way. 

They talk about it in therapy. They don’t want to talk about it 24/7 with their friends, too. They don’t want to spend all their meals with their friends staring at every mouthful they take, or hearing about how much weight they’ve lost or gained. 

They just want to live. 

(Tori stares anyway, and sometimes Robbie does too. Cat and Jade ignore them.)

\---

Cat’s asleep on the bottom bunk when Jade walks in after her production final, and she’s very very still, and for a moment she panics. She calls Beck, starts to hyperventilate, and walks over to check for a pulse. Cat stumbling is never good, but right before summer seems awful although of course she would, because summer means bikinis and Jade herself was nervous about that. 

Then she remembers the lunch they ate together with Beck earlier that day. 

Cat’s still wearing her shoes, she’s on top of the duvet, and her special effects make up notebook is in her hand. The poor girl must have fallen asleep exhausted from a week of finals, not a lack of food. 

Jade hangs up just as Beck picks up, already running towards them, and curls up into bed with Cat, not bothering to take her own shoes and backpack off either. 

Beck goes through a similar panic attack when he crashes through their door twenty minutes later, vinyl and music sheets and melted ice coffee in hand. 

He calls Jade a wazz twice, and she blames Cat, who blames their professors for scheduling all their finals back to back. 

They order sushi because none of them feel like cooking, and they split it almost equally. 

Beck orders more, and almost makes a joke about how he liked dinner with them better when he got to eat all their food too. 

Cat makes it for him, and after an awkward pause, he joins in with their laughter. 

\----

They get a house for the next school year at the start of the summer. It’s a three bedroom, but they just put a giant king size bed in the biggest bedroom and let Tori, Robbie and Andre fight it out for the other two rooms. Andre wins the biggest room and lets Robbie share with him, Tori grumbles a bit about having the smallest room but perks up when someone points out she’s the only one with a single room. 

\---

“Are you sure a king size bed is big enough? There’s  _ three _ of us.” 

Beck laughs, “Did you already forget last year we all spent half the year sharing a  _ twin bed _ ?”

Jade opens her mouth, closes it. 

Cat seems to share the same unspoken thought, and shakes her head a little. 

Beck sighs quietly, it’s easy to forget on their good days that they’ll still have bad days. 

But Cat’s leaping through the air before he can even come up with a kind reply to their unshared fear. “SO MUCH BED.” She bounces up and down a few times, holding her hands out to them until they join her, tackling her down. 

“See? Pleeenty of room.” 

Cat and Jade kick him off the bed to make more room, and he wonders whether they need to team up against him so often, but they’re laughing so hard they have tears running down their cheeks even though a few minutes ago they were both dealing with their inner demons, so he lets them push him off once more when he sits back down on the bed. 

  
  


Just once more though, he still has some dignity to maintain. (He’s not sure who he’s maintaining this dignity for, since he can hear Robbie singing Barbie Girl somewhere downstairs, and Andre eggingin him on, but he’ll maintain it all the same. 

\---

They talk about it one day, sort of. 

“Hey Cat?” 

“Jadeypoop.” 

Jade wrinkles her nose at the new nickname she hates but doesn’t bother correcting it, Cat would just call her it 100 more times. She ducks her head instead, swinging herself higher on the children’s swings they often find themselves in when they  _ do _ want to Talk about Things. 

It’s a quiet park, they’ve never seen anyone here, so it’s the perfect place for them to talk. 

“Are you sure it wasn’t my fault?” 

Cat shakes her head, not needing an explanation for what Jade’s referring to. “I was 18 when we met in that office, Jade, I knew what diets were already. My mom had put me on one most of my childhood anyway. It just. College was... is, I guess... where I could be who I wanted. Do what I wanted. And I thought... I thought that was what I wanted.” 

“Dieting?” Jade wrinkles her nose. 

“Perfection.” 

Jade humms, and that’s as far as Cat shares. 

“Did I... did I make yours worse?” 

Jade’s not surprised at the question. She’s talked about it in therapy. Her therapist had asked it, as soon as she’d first talked about Cat. Beck had asked it once, too. “No.”

“Oh.”

Jade turns to face Cat, making her swing spin sideways, spinning her too far. She laughs as it unspins and she leans into the dizzy feeling for a moment. It’s been a while since she’s felt it. She didn’t miss it at all. 

“No, you didn’t. You actually... helped. That sounds stupid, maybe, but you helped.” 

Jade doesn’t explain any further, and Cat doesn’t ask her to. She gets it, anyway. 

Beck picks them up an hour later, Jade calls him when neither of them really want to walk back to the house. 

They get froyo with lots of toppings and he doesn’t ask about their conversation and they don’t talk about it. They do share his toppings though and he rolls his eyes and gets himself another froyo with extra toppings. 

\--- 

It starts out small, it always does. So small, that no one even notices. 

Until they do. 

Until it gets too big to ignore. 

But they don’t need to talk it out, share every detail. 

They just love each other. 

It doesn’t quite end, but it gets smaller and fades away into the background of their lives. 

\--- 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're struggling : <3 you've got this, i believe in you, i love you <3 
> 
> \---
> 
> like i said in the a/n at the start of this, this is a very very specific view of an ED. no ED is this calm and simple, though. they tear you apart and leave nothing whole in their path of destruction. even in this story, cat and jade both go through therapy and do a lot of deep work there, it's just not mentioned because that's not the focus of this. 
> 
> this also didn't focus on the numbers, or the control, aspect of EDs. this is not to glamorize them or to gloss over them. there is another version of this story that i want to write, one that's a lot more raw and dives a lot more into the arguments and issues that beck and cat and jade have throughout this. 
> 
> i just. needed to write this version of this story, too. i hope you didn't mind. <3


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